Parthian campaign strategies

[Xuande]

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Here are my own ideas on the topic

Parthian strength and weaknesses :

Military : The Parthian have a relatively weak infantry rooster. They start with some of the crappiest line infantry of all : the oriental lancers. However, these low morale, routing prone lancers can still be useful, as we will see.

The strong point of a Parthian army is to be found in their mounted troops, both light and heavy, and, to a lesser extent, in their bowmen. Their mounted, armoured, archers are a must mid-game onwards, since, with proper coverage, they can easily harass enemy infantry to the point of exhaustion in a typically Parthian approach (remember the battle of Carrhae).

I would advise any Parthian player to build two types of armies : full cavalry armies, for offensive campaigns, and full infantry armies for defending walled towns.

(1) Parthia may be one of the only playable factions able to field viable full cavalry armies. These shoud have :
- 1 general (of course !), preferably of "royal cataphract" type.
- 5 to 6 heavy mounted archers,
- 4 to 5 cataphracts,
- 2 Medic cavalry (this light cavalry is to be used as a way to "catch" enemy mounted archers or skirmishers),
- 1 or 2 camel lancers : a most crappy unit, with poor stats and low morale, but who makes an excellent job at neutralizing enemy cavalries, and thus at guarding any armies' flanks. If they catch a stronger opponent, just support them with "regular" forces. They will scare the enemy horses while your cataphracts will finish the enemy.

(2) If you can, build infantry armies to support your cavalry army. Use theses armies to garrison recently conquered walled border towns :
- 1 general,
- 6 to 7 elite bowmen to man the walls,
- 2 to three crappy oriental lancers (to kill mounted enemies),
- the rest can be made of rank and file persian swordsmen (don't remember), with one or two camels.

Please note that although hyper-crappy, oriental lancers are the only units you can build early on, and that they enjoy a significative advantage against light cavalry units in auto-calculation (or if you manage to trap them in the streets of a small town, which requires much skill and cunning). So, in your starting force, you'll need them in larger amounts, especially since you'll be fighting mainly steppe opponents, who rely heavily on mounted archers.

The Parthian bowmen are rather efficient. Unfortunately, they have a short firing range, which means that they do not have enough time to inflict significant casualties on a charging enemy. It is thus often necessary, if you want to avoid chaos in your lines when they auto-retreat from a charge, to put them behind your infantry from the start and put them in guard/stand mode. You will loose in firing range, but at least, they'll be able to fire continuously while your infantry neutralize the enemy advance, therefore inflicting more damage to the opponent.

Parthian can recruit war elephants. However, since you need to focus on the "siege" technology line to get them, I tend not to use them in my armies.

Last comment on the military, please note that your starting army is especially unmanageable against your early opponents. I already commented on oriental lancers. These are however easy to command. The issue with the starting army is that it contains crowds of mounted javelin throwers. Unless you are a champion in micromanagement and "pause button pressing", these will guarantee you crushing defeats against steppe armies. Although they are supposed to inflict more damage than bowmen, whenever I used them against scythian bowmen, they lost, even when fighting on 3 to one. So one of the first thing I do when playing Parthia is to disband these units, and replace them as soon as possible by infantry archers and Medic cavalry, who will literally slaughter Scythian mounted archers in no time.

As to the navy, the Parthians can rise decent greek-style naval forces ... when they finally reach the sea. In this regard, the Caspian sea has no nearby ports. So Parthia will not get warships before it gets to the Gulf or the Mediterranean.

Please note that you still can cross the Caspian sea on board of transport ship, if you fancy to invade Caucasus or Scythia without causing World War Zero with the Seleucid empire.

Economy : "Money, money, money"

Parthia can quickly turn into a cash machine. They are a "city development" faction. First thing, they are close to many interesting ressources spots : gold in the Caucasus, and, above all, textile, on the silk road. A fully developped textile colony can bring 1200 cash per turn. And that's without the trade impact. Usually, this kind of development comes at a cost in terms of food or squalor. Fortunately, Parthian capitals can build a wide choice of excellent capital special buildings, giving huge order bonuses at no cost at all. The greatest of all is the Polo Game Field. Fully upgraded, it gives + 20 order, and costs 0 food !!!! + 20 order, without any drawback is just incredible ! Add a few temples here and there, a small government office (larger ones cost food) and either a market or a spice bazar, and cash will flow turn by turn, making Parthia a great candidate for an economic victory.

Moreover, Parthia is close to a lot of small provinces (under 3 regions per province), which means you get a lot of capital cities to develop with Polo fields and bazars or spice markets. Just devote one large province (Parthia) to troop production, and the rest will draw rivers of gold into your coffers. After that, you can buy the world.

Agriculture : Parthia has a poor agricultural output. You can't build fields in your capitals (and as I said, there are a lot), and you can only build one wheat farm in each colony. If you go towards full agricultural specialization in colonies, you'll get, at best : 1 farm + 1 nomad camp (it seems that the camp update into Qanat does not produce more food. it just increases agricultural income). If you want some more food, you'll need to build markets in capital cities, but they won't bring much food, and they'll boost squalor.

So take care when you expand too fast with Parthia. Since food is scarce, you might get into famine in no time.

Research :

Parthia enjoys huge building-based bonuses in research when it starts to expand in Persia. The capital library chain of buildings can be accessed early on. And once you build them, your research rate will skyrocket : the first level brings + 5%, the second + 10 % and the last + 20 %. These buildings are cheap and do not bring any squalor. So you can build some in almost all of your numerous capitals. Therefore, once you own Persia, you'll get around + 250% in research, especially if you also recruited some magi (dignitaries) which you specialized in this field.

This means that even though you can start and stagnate as a backwards kingdom in the early stages of the game, you'll quickly catch up with others later on.


Campaign guidelines :

1/ Horrible and possibly boring beginnings ...

You start in a very unconfortable position. In the South stands Parthava. They hate you. You hate them. But likely, nothing will happen, for they are a satrapy of the Seleucids. It therefore seems that they can't declare war on you unless their overlords do. And to be frank, the Seleucids have absolutely no reason to do so, since they stand on the other side of the earth and do not even know who you are. In my campaigns, danger NEVER came from the South.

Meanwhile, in the North, the Dahae are your buddies. You are allied with them. So they won't attack you either.

In other words, your expansion options are very limited. If you attack Parthava, all the Seleucid allies will join the war against you and you'll be crushed in no time. If you betray your ally, it probably won't protect you from the bellicose northern steppe tribes.

At first there's nothing you can do but wait. But waiting is no inaction.

2/ Geopolitics of the East.

Being ally with the Dahae is really a scourge. They tend to wage war on everybody else, and of course, they'll bring you into these wars. The usual candidates are the northern tribes : Massagetes, Khorasmian, and the eastern Bactrians. It actually doesn't matter much, since after an initial victory or two, the Dahae defenses will crumble under the number. And by that time, you'll be the next one on the black list.

Therefore, your first task should be to prepare for this : as there is 70% chances that your foes will be scythian, prepare to fight their scythian horse archers. Disband your mounted javelin throwers, focus on military research, and recruit infantry archers asap to supplement your lancers with arrow coverage. Recruit a few mercenary cavalry, and aim at producing Medic horsemen (research, again). You don't need civil technologies early on. You'll get them later.

With infantry archers, lancers and 4 to 5 light cavalry (NOT javelin throwers please), you'll be ready to give a warm welcome to your scythian friends, whose armies usually consist of stacks of mounted archers. Shower them with arrows or slaughter them with your light cavalry (they're made for that), and it should be OK.

As Parthia, I don't find promoting your generals as useful as with the Arverni. On the other hand, you'll need to promote your "army traditions" : choose the public order bonuses and the range bonuses. They'll be useful to defeat your steppic opponents and maintain order in these foreign lands (steppic culture).

If you leave the Dahae to themselves, they'll campaign in disorderly fashion and get destroyed very quickly. You may order them to attack specific targets to help them live a bit longer. Personally I sent them against Samarkand. As a consequence, when their capital was taken by the northern invaders, they still had a nice stronghold to cling to. The northern tribes sent their armies after them towards the East, which left the former Dahae capital and Boukhara completely void of defenders and enabled me to conquer them swiftly. I would "liberate" Samarkand later. Taking Samarkand will give you a "textile" colony and make you very wealthy. So make sure you get this city.

Once that is done, make sure you kill the Massagetes and Khorasmian before moving against the Persian satraps.

About the Seleucid empire, now :

Usually, one or two satrap kingdoms rebel against the Seleucid early on, wreaking havoc in the whole of Persia. In my games, one of these rebels was, invariably, Bactria. Believe it or not, I never saw Parthava going into rebellion ! So do not count on them to rebel. If you want to take their lands, their will be only two alternative choices :

1/ Level up some spies and cause unrest in their lands, to conquer them over the rebels. This works all the more so on colonies that are hotly disputed between pro an anti Seleucids. However, when the situation gets more stable later in game, it becomes increasingly difficult to "steal" colonies with this method.

2/ Attack Parthava. All the Seleucid clients will instantly declare war on you, and you'll face a "realm divide" like situation for a while (except you can negotiate separate peace treaties with each foes).

I would suggest to start with method n°1 and then, when you feel strong enough launch a well planned "blitzkrieg" with method n°2 later in the game. Do not attack the Seleucids early on.

I also would not recommand attacking the anti-Seleucid satraps for, as they are always a minority, they tend to get destroyed early on. So by attacking them, you will only hasten their demise and make the Seleucid stronger, which will hamper the "method n°2".

CONCLUSION :

I would sum up my approach by :
(1) Prepare for war.
(2) Wipe out the Scythians
(3) Develop your economy
(4) Plot against the Seleucids.
And this could take more than 100 turns.
and (5) Strike suddenly : take all Seleucid satrap kingdoms.

If you want to try something bold you may head directly for the Seleucid heartlands. Leave them with only one colony and offer them to surrender as satraps.

Surprise ! If they accept, all their statraps will instantly become yours, and you'll control al the lands between India and the Mediterranean. This huge territorial boost might trigger a civil war sooner than expected though. You may loose the opportunity to control directly all the "textile / silk" towns. And former allies might turn into enemies. But this could be fun.

[AdDa090]

Despite CA listing Parthia as a hard campaign difficulty, it really isn't bad at all. To the south everyone hates your guts, but they're all satrapies of the Seleucids, and thus therefore unable to declare on you (as mentioned above.) Since at the start of the game you haven't discovered the Seleucids, they can't declare on you, nor you them, until one of you sends an agent/army to the west/east respectively. Thus there is basically no threat from the south, the only possibility is if one of the nations breaks off from the Seleucids, but even on VH and Legendary this is extremely rare, and is actually a good thing especially if it's the Parthavans since you're going to want to unite all of Parthia.

With the Dahae blocking the scythians who are itching to invade you from the north, the choice is pretty clear for me in which direction to conquer first, and that is east. The Baktrians are a perfect target for you, especially if you load up on Median Cavalry, you'll sweep their army/armies rather easily.

After that, there's a high chance the Khorasmii(?) will have destroyed the Dahae, so you're gonna want to head north after you finish off the Baktrians. If they haven't then striking at them anyway is a good idea, they always declare on you early. After beating them, turning on your Dahae allies is always a good idea so you can compete that province.

Doing all of the above will leave you with 3 full provinces, and 1/4 of Parthia (7 total settlements). Up to you what to do after this, though I'd suggest leaving an army guarding the north, because 1 or more of those steppe tribes will be coming. Besides that, I would build up an economy, troop center, then pick a direction and invade.